You will always find in me, dear Sir, the utmost inclination to be of service to you; and let me beg that you will remember your promise of writing to me.  As I am so much in town and in the world, I flatter myself with having generally something to tell you that may make my letters agreeable in the country:  you, any where, make yours charming.

Be so good to say any thing you think proper from me to your sisters, and believe me, dear George, yours most sincerely.

(1041) Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Montagu, killed at the battle of Fontenoy.

415 Letter 163 To Sir Horace Mann.  Arlington Street, May 24, 1745.

I have no consequences of the battle of Tournay to tell you but the taking of the town:  the governor has eight days allowed him to consider whether he will give up the citadel.  The French certainly lost more men than we did.  Our army is still at Lessines waiting for recruits from Holland and England; ours are sailed.  The King is at Hanover.  All the letters are full of the Duke’s humanity and bravery:  he will be as popular with the lower class of men as he has been for three or four years with the low women:  he will be the soldier’s Great Sir as well as theirs.  I am really glad; it will be of great service to the family, if any one of them come to make a figure.

Lord Chesterfield is returned from Holland; you will see a most simple farewell speech of his in the papers.(1042)

I have received yours of the 4th of May, and am extremely obliged to you for your expressions of kindness:  they did not at all surprise me, but every instance of your friendship gives me pleasure.  I wish I could say the same to good prince Craon.  Yet I must set about answering his letter:  it is quite an affair; I have so great a disuse of writing French, that I believe it will be very barbarous.

My fears for Tuscany are again awakened:  the wonderful march Which the Spanish Queen has made Monsieur de Gage take, may probably end in his turning short to the left; for his route to Genoa will be full as difficult as what he has already passed.  I watch eagerly every article from Italy, at a time when nobody will read a paragraph but from the army in Flanders.

I am diverted with my Lady’s(1043) account of the great riches that are now coming to her.  She has had so many foolish golden visions, that I should think even the Florentines would not be the dupes of any more.  As for her mourning, she may save it, if she expects to have it notified.  Don’t you remember my Lady Pomfret’s having a piece of economy of that sort, when she would not know that the Emperor was dead, because my Lord Chamberlain had not notified it to her.